Thomas Keller and Williams Sonoma partner up again

Yes, the man does it again bringing you another bite from his empire.

I wanted to check out the new digs on the Williams Sonoma store and look for gift ideas for father's day - maybe a grill gift basket of sorts for my husband and a kitchen gadget for papa- and that's where I saw it snuggled on a corner display table partnered up with deep fryers, skillets and mesh grills- a ready made packet of Mr. Keller's famous buttermilk fried chicken mix sans chicken of course.

I couldn't believe it. You mean instead of rolling the dice on opentable.com and hoping to get a reservation to Ad Hoc on any of the two Monday's and making my way up to Yountville I could just buy a packet and make it myself from the comforts of my own home?
Talk about short cuts.

At about $15 a packet you would still need to buy your whole chicken, buttermilk and a few other staple fresh ingredients. The packet is pretty much just the dry ingredients seperated for both the brining and frying used in his famous comfort food dish. Each packet, if I remember correctly, prepares two whole birds.

If you were to do it yourself from scratch it's been noted to take almost 24 hours, depending on preferred brining time, before you could bite into that succulent hot piece of bird. Kudos to those who have that kind of patience to do so!

So if you're dying to see what all the hype is about and wonder if it's really true (yes, it is!) here's a shortcut way of finding out yourself. Personally, I'd still try my luck rolling the dice.

Recipe of Thomas Keller's famous buttermilk fried chicken (from Epicurious)